Unusual Shutdown problem. Need some help solving issue please.

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zewt

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I recently built my first dual core system and have been experiencing a very difficult problem that I cannot solve.

Bacially it shuts down cold, for no reason I can seem to recreate.

This is a full dead shutdown, where I need to press the start button to boot up again.

I figured it was a PS problem and changed out two that I had with no success. I finally bought a 500w Antec rated for use in a SLI pc, and still no success.

My system parameters are listed below.

OS: XP Pro
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Processor Socket 939
MB: Asus A8N-SLI nForce4 SLI Athlon 64(FX) Skt939 DDR ATX
RAM: GeIL GE2GB3200BDC 2GB Kit DDR400 PC3200 Dual Channel
VIDEO: eVGA e-GeForce 7800 GT PCI Express 256MB DDR3
DRIVE: Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 74GB Serial ATA 10,000RPM Hard Drive w/8MB Buffer

I am not running SLI mode.

The system will run fine for sometimes a day without issues, or it may shutdown 2 times in an hour.

It seems to shutdown it no matter if I am reading email, browsing the web or playing a game. Nothing seems to regularly trigger it. It does happen more often during a game but considering that puts more of a load on a number of devices it could still be anything.

I have updated the MB BIOS, the Nvidia video drivers and chipset drivers. Still no change.

I do not have the hardware to swap out things like the CPU and Video card as this is the first system I have build with PCIx.

Is there any way to diagnose what is causing this serious shutdown problem? What would cause a system to just shut down cold like that if not a PS?

Any help and ideas are appreciated. I am at my wits end.
 
It might be overheating, games use a lot of of cpu power and the AMD 64 bit cpus get pretty hot. I would look in the BIOS, there should be a temperature menu or option somewhere. If it is overheating try a bigger heatsink.
 
the amd 64bit cpus remark is incorrect , their very *cool* , anyway its not really the size of the heatsink that counts its his design fins and materials also the heatsink fan plays an important part but not as much as the heatsink , anyway check in pc health/hardware monitoring in bios and report back with the temperature , its also possible that your cpu temperature is within normal specs but the maximum cpu temperature in your bios is defined too low
 
One of the first things I tested for was excessive heat.

I opened the side of the case and directed a high speed 12" fan on the motherboard to see if it made any difference. It did not, I still had shut downs.

The CPU fan I am using came with the CPU, it is the stock fan. I had hoped it would be sufficient as I am not over-clocking.

I have been able to play such games at UT2004 and COD2 for many hours 5-7+ without a shutdown.

And somedays I can turn the PC on and have a shutdown after 10 minutes.

What tool would you recommend for monitoring of CPU and MB temps?
 
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